We do not want truth to become a luxury good in a sea of slop

Greetings from day two of Everything Open 2026 at University of Canberra. Keir Winesmith, Chief Digital Officer of the National Film & Sound Archive of Australia is arguing we are at the end of a golden age for creative arts online and the beginning of another using AI. The Archives will be sharing more. He used as an example of technology sparking creative the first filming of the Melbourne Cup: filmed in Melbourne, developed in the air on its way to Sydney and shown shortly after.

In a sobering conclusion he argued those working for open access to cultural knowledge had provided the raw material for creating false narratives via AI. He ended by saying "We do not want truth to become a luxury good in a sea of slop". This is particularity relevant on the National Day of Mourning for the victims of the Bondi Beach terrorist attack​. 

My pick of day 2 of EO:

10:45AM I accidentally became a FOSS maintainer and all I got was this lousy insight into librarianship, Hugh Rundle

11:40AM A University Library's journey in making technology training resources FAIR, Stéphane Guillou

1:30PM Reclaiming the open web: a story about big tech, platforms and millennial dreams of a connected web, Milly Schmidt

2:25PM By Design: CAUL’s Vision for an Open Future in Australasian Higher Education, Ash Barber, Rebecca Barber

3:45PM Effective Coaching, Nicola Nye

4:40PM When something has gone wrong in your neighbourhood, and they're calling you... whatcha gonna do?, Rachel Bunder

Australian Regional University Study Hubs

Map of Regional University Study Hubs,
from Department of Education, 2024

The UK Open University found more than 50 years ago that distance students formed their own local study groups. The Australian Government is funding Regional University Study Hubs, which any Australian university student can use. Suburban University Study Hubs are being added to the program for disadvantaged students in outer metropolitan areas. Some metropolitan universities, such as UWA, already had satellite campuses, which are only for use by their students, and are continuing to operate alongside the study hubs (the UWA Albany Center is only a few blocks from the Albany Study Hub). 

As soon as I became an online student, I had an overwhelming urge to attend class. This was a surprise, as I was a practitioner of online learning, as well as a mature, postgraduate student. It was not so much for face to face tuition by a teacher, but to talk to other students. Unfortunately, I couldn't find anyone else studying at the same universities nearby, so I attended workshops and seminars at the local university for students, and staff, of the same discipline. In this I had an advantage of being on the staff of one of the universities, so having access the average student does not. In one case I convened my own interest group at the offices of my professional body.

Nurturing an Academic Community Online

Much as been written about how the Internet is undermining scholarship, and isolating us, but it can also be a way to bring people with common interests together, especially when isolate physically. When COVID-19 struck in early 2020, I found myself physically cut off from colleagues. One thing I did was join the Mobile Learning Special Interest Group (MLSIG) of the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ASCILITE). That proved useful in overcoming isolation, and productive, in writing conference papers, and giving presentations with members of the group. It was not for three years that I actually met any of the members of the SIG, face to face, when I attended an ASCILITE conference face to face. How the groups works is now published in an open access paper, from some of the members.

Reference

Narayan, V., Cochrane, T., Stretton, T., Chanane, N., Alizadeh, M., Birt, J., … Vanderburg, R. (2024). A model for nurturing a networked academic community: #ASCILITEMLSIG mobile learning special interest group. International Journal for Academic Development, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/1360144X.2024.2349930

Weaponizing ChatGPT

Professor Sarah Kreps,
Cornell University

Since late last year I have been part of presenting, and attended, many seminars on ChatGPT, but this is a first: "Weaponizing ChatGPT?  National Security and the Perils of AI-Generated Texts in Democratic Societies". In this case "weaponising" is not a metaphor, or hyperbole, it really is about using AI to wage war. Greetings from the Australian National University, where a group of defence and AI experts from around the world are meeting, sponsored by the Australian Department of Defence. . This is the sort of seminar where not only have the speakers just published a new books, but so have half the audience. It is a little intimidating.

Professor Sarah Kreps, Cornell University, explained she was in the US Air Force engineering, working on the predator UAV, and AI was a short step from there. She suggested AI started in the civilian sector, and will then be adopted by the military. I am not so sure that is the case. What became web search engines, came out of research sponsored by US DoD. Some of the AI research is similarly sponsored. 

From the Professor's description, the US approach seems to be limited to what the threat might be from an adversary's use of AI. What I suggest western military's need to do is consider how they will use AI. As an example, if AI is being used defensively to create plausible fake news to undermine your nation, how can it be use to create instant factual responses, or offensively to create a largely factual narrative to undermine the enemy. 

Professor Kreps characterized western countries as an open system which could be exploited by misinformation, and AI can be used to enhance this. The result would be customized fake news to appeal to specific groups. 

It would be interesting to see what the ADF's Information Warfare Division is doing with generative AI. Just as Australia's military cyber-security experts have had an increasing role protecting government and civilian systems, with its name changed from Defence Signals Directorate, to Australian Signals Directorate. Is there a similar role for IWD?

Professor Kreps suggested the vocabulary used could indicate when generative AI is used. I suggest that can't be relied on. Professional speechwriters know to use the language and cadence of their customers. It will not be difficult for AI to write using the language of a particular individual, or group.

This would appear to be an area where DARPA, its UK & US equivalents, could provide funding for universities. This could produce free open access tools to counter misinformation.

Flexible Degrees from Multiple Universities for Australia?

Professor Heller

Professor Heller (Newcastle), suggests Australian universities provide open access educational resources, which students can use to "design their own degrees", with units from multiple universities (Heller, 2023). As they point out, this is not a new idea. The problem, I suggest, has been incentives. Why would universities give away their content for free? Why would academics write course content for no reward? Professor Heller suggests at least part of the answer would be to treat the published courses as the equivalent of a research publication, after peer review. This ide has merit, as at the moment, course materials and even textbook do not count as scholarly publications, as they are not considered original work (as a course is supposed to teach existing, not new, knowledge).

There are some incentives, as Professor Heller points out for materials sharing. In part this happens informally. For the last year I have been assessing applications for exceptions and credit from studnts, for what they studied elsewhere. To do this I have to compare courses from around Australia and across thew world. It is remarkable how similar they are, at least in my discipline of computing. This should not be surprising, as they are all working from the same codified body of knowledge, and assessment requirements,. Academics meet to exchange ideas, and also professional bodies, nationally and internationally, meet to set accreditation standards. While universities each market programs claiming unique features, the courses are really much the same.

There are some multi-university arrangements already in place. The most successful is Open Universities Australia (OUA), offering courses from 22 universities. These are online courses offered globally. The consortium includes leading institutions, but they tend to not promote their OUA membership. OUA is like Fight Club: many universities belong to OUA, but they don't talk about it. It perhaps would cut across marketing strategies based on claims of uniqueness, and the benefits of a campus experience, if students realized they could get the same degree from the same institution online, with option of including courses from others.

Even without OUA there is scope for students to DIY a qualification. For my Graduate Certificate in Higher Education, I wanted to learn more about online learning. So I obtained permission from my supervisor to undertake two courses (half my program), at an affiliated university. However, the paperwork need to do this was daunting. So I bypassed it, instead simply enrolling in courses as a professional development (non-program) student at the second institution, paying with my credit card, and presenting my results at the first for credit. This avoided using the complex inter-institutional procedures.

The Australian Vocational Education system already has full mutual recognition, and recognition of prior learning. The definitions of all units of learning at all institutions, public, and private are publicly available in one national database. A student can apply units from any institution for a qualification at any other. They can also obtain credit for work experience or prior learning for any, or all, of a qualification (I got 80% of a Certificate IV in Training and Assessment this way). It is unlikely universities would accept such a rigid system (and would not have staff competent to implement it). But they could do it at a limited level in disciplines, such as computing, which already are internationally standardized.

References

Heller, R. F. (2023). Plan E for Education: open access to educational materials created in publicly funded universities.

Redesigning University for All Students

Greetings from the ANU First Generation Welcome Alumni Week event. Staff and graduates, who's parents did not go to university were asked along to share their experience. Despite studying this topic during my MEd, it was only a couple of years ago, at one of these ANU events, I realized I was one. But I still have difficulty understanding how this made my university experience different.

The talks from staff who were fist generation was useful, in helping current students understand they are not alone. However, I suspect that people who go on to become academics have very different university experience to the average student. As an example, they seem to have attended a lot of universities, and completed multiple qualifications ( as have I). That would be daunting for a student just starting out. We need to tell them it is okay to go to one university, and then get a job outside: you don't have to aim to be an academic.

Also what was of use were group discussions around tables. This helps students meet others like themselves. It also helped me realise that there are those who have a more difficult time then I did. Those of us from a low income, single parent first generation backgrounds may think we had it tough, but hearing from someone whose parents were political prisoners for years, puts it in perspective.

While a one off, face to face event is useful, I suggest much more is needed to help first generation students. This has to be built into the curriculum, as a compulsory assessed, for-credit component, not an optional extra-curricular activity. 

One way for first generation students to be helped, I suggest, is to offer training in how to be a student as a formal, compulsory, initial course, which counts towards their degree. As a student, I would not do an optional activity, as it would be stealing time (and money) from my essential compulsory courses. I suspect that is a mindset which goes with being a first generation student.

There also small impediments which can be easily fixed. As an example, getting textbooks is said to be something first generation students have difficulty with. The last university I studied at provided textbooks (this is a common feature at open and distance universities). As a student, I didn't have to pay extra, or do anything to get the books. A few weeks before the course started, a package of books arrived on my doorstep. This applied wherever in the world you were: I was 13,000 km from the campus, but the books still turned up, on time. This is something more Australian universities could emulate.

The approach, I suggest, is to flip the thinking on first in family students. At present universities design on the assumption that students know about university, through having attended a private school, or from university educated parents. Special arrangements are then just needed for those who did not. This is similar to the approach which used to be made for those with a disability. That approach would no longer be acceptable: you can't build a classroom without wheelchair access, and the offer to carry disabled students up the stairs: that would be unlawful discrimination. The approach to first in family and other disadvantaged students should similarly change: provision for them should be built into the curriculum, as the default option. This will then help all students, including those who had a less successful private school education or unhelpful university educated parents.

Discussion Paper on The Future of Australian Universites

The Australian Universities Accord Panel, chaired by Professor Mary O’Kane, has released a 44 page Discussion Paper. I submitted Some Thoughts on the Future of Australian Higher Education in December.

There are a series of questions in the paper. Here is my attempt to answer some. An underlying these in these, I realised later, was to make Uni more like TAFE, with shorter, nested, competency based, work integrated courses, delivered by people trained to teach:

Role of higher education:

1. "How should an Accord be structured and focused to meet the challenges facing Australia’s higher education system? What is needed to overcome limitations in the current approach to Australian higher education?
2. How can the diverse missions of Australian higher education providers be supported, taking into account their different operating contexts and communities they serve (for example regional universities)?
3. What should the long-term target/s be for Australia’s higher education attainment by 2030 and 2040, and how should these be set and adjusted over time?"

There is enough in just these three questions to keep academia busy for decades. I suggest the diverse mission of Australian higher education can be supported by allowing for a diversity of institutions. In particular vocational education needs to be strengthened, to become the first option for post-school education, not just something you do if you can't get into a  university. A reasonable aim would be to have 80% of the 25-34 year old population with at least an AQF Level 4 Qualification (Certificate IV). This would be more useful goal than aiming for a bachelor's degree for the majority of the population.

Challenges and opportunities for the higher education system

4. "Looking from now to 2030 and 2040, what major national challenges and opportunities should Australian higher education be focused on meeting?

5 How do the current structures of institutions, regulation and funding in higher education help or hinder Australia’s ability to meet these challenges? What needs to change?

6 What are the best ways to achieve and sustain future growth in Australian higher education, given the changing needs of the population and the current pressures on public funding?

7 How should the mix of providers evolve, considering the size and location of existing institutions and the future needs of communities?"

The challenge I suggested Australian universities face in 2016 was how to provide quality education online. I warned that international students could be prevented from getting to Australian campuses, due to a regional crisis. Unfortunately universities failed to heed this warning, and were largely unprepared when COVID-19 struck.

However, I also warned of a longer term challenge with competition for international and domestic students from offshore, and online universities. Australian universities are also failing to meet this challenge, assuming that with COVID-19 receding, they can scale back ad-hoc online learning. As a result, international and domestic studnts will choose to study elsewhere.

Challenges and opportunities for the higher education system

9 "How should Australia ensure enough students are studying courses that align with the changing needs of the economy and society?

10 What role should higher education play in helping to develop high quality general learning capabilities across all age groups and industries? 

11 How should Australia boost demand from people to study in the higher education system? 

12 How should an adequate supply of CSPs be sustained and funded, as population and demand increase?"

Australian governments can fund vocational education programs in areas of demand. Some of those students can then go on to university study. This will ensure that there are incentives for study in particular fields, without burdening the taxpayer with the entire cost.

Universities can provide work integrated, competency based, nested programs, which allow new and mature students to gain the skills they need quickly. A student should be able to undertake a microcredential which takes only a few weeks study, and have that count towards a certificate, diploma, and degree.

Collaboration with industry

13 "How could an Accord support cooperation between providers, accreditation bodies, government and industry to ensure graduates have relevant skills for the workforce?

14 How should placement arrangements and work-integrated learning (WIL) in higher education change in the decades ahead?"

Professional associations have a key role in setting the standards for the professions. 

Unpaid internships should be outlawed through state and federal legislation. Those industries willing to pay for trainees will get staff. Those companies unwilling to invest in their future will not have a future.

Lifelong Learning

15 "What changes are needed to grow a culture of lifelong learning in Australia?

16 What practical barriers are inhibiting lifelong learning, and how can they be fixed?"

A major impediment to life long learning is the assumption that school leavers attend a campus full time for three years to obtain a degree for a first job. Shorter qualifications, part time, and mature students are therefore seen as an afterthought by universities. This can be changed by requiring universities to offer online, nested, qualifications which suit mature working students. 

Connection between the vocational education and training and higher education systems

17 "How should better alignment and connection across Australia’s tertiary education system be achieved?

18 What role should reform of the AQF play in creating this alignment?

19 What would a more effective and collaborative national governance approach to tertiary education look like?

20 How can pathways between VET and higher education be improved, and how can students be helped to navigate these pathways? 

21 How can current examples of successful linkages between VET and higher education be integrated across the tertiary education system? 

22 What role do tertiary entrance and admissions systems play in matching learners to pathways and supporting a sustained increase in participation and tertiary success?"

Better alignment can be achieved by directing more of the funding to the vocational sector, so it becomes the first choice for students leaving school. That will then give the vocational sector the power to negotiate alignment with universities, as most university entrants will be coming from the vocational sector, and that sector will be able to influence which university they select.

The tertiary entrance and admissions systems are poor at matching learners to pathways, and should be scrapped.

Solving Big Challenges

23 "How should an Accord help Australia increase collaboration between industry, government and universities to solve big challenges?

24 What reforms will enable Australian research institutions to achieve excellence, scale and impact in particular fields?

25 How should Australia leverage its research capacity overall and use it more effectively to develop new capabilities and solve wicked problems?

26 How can Australia stimulate greater industry investment in research and more effective collaboration?"

Australian government can consult the education sector, as well as others, when setting national priorities.  They can then allocate funding for universities in accordance with those priorities.

Compulsory industry training for research students will help increase impact. There is little point in having excellent research if the researchers do not see it as part of their job, and do not have the skills, to put that research into practice.

Research Workforce

27 "How can we improve research training in Australia including improving pathways for researchers to gain experience and develop high-impact careers in government and industry?"

The Australian Government can improve pathways by transferring funding from research doctorates to professional doctorates. Professional doctorates provide more rounded, useful graduates for government and industry.

Academic Preparadness

28 "What is needed to increase the number of people from under-represented groups applying to and prepared for higher education, both from school and from other pathways?

29 What changes in provider practices and offerings are necessary to ensure all potential students can succeed in their chosen area of study?"

Open universities have for decades shown how to provide for under-represented groups, by offering part time, online studies, recognising prior experience as being as valuable as formal study.

Addressing barriers to access

30 "How can governments, institutions and employers assist students, widen opportunities and remove barriers to higher education?

31 How can the costs of participation, including living expenses, be most effectively alleviated?"

Governments can increase funding for vocational education, to make it the default pathway to university. Government can require universities to make online, part time, work integrated learning the default option.

Training can be provided to university program and course designers to show them how to design out the privileged assumptions built into current university programs. Government can require universities to built in study skills courses to programs, rather than have these an optional extra for disadvantaged students.

System-wide approaches to increasing access and equity

32 "How can best practice learning and teaching for students from under-represented groups be embedded across the higher education system, including the use of remote learning?

33 What changes to funding and regulatory settings would enable providers to better support students from under-represented groups in higher education?"

Governments, and professional accreditation bodies, can make teaching qualifications for university teaching staff mandatory. Staff will then have the skills needed to design out the discrimination currently built into courses, due to lack of competence.

Communities

34 "How should the contribution of higher education providers to community engagement be encouraged and promoted?

35 Where providers make a distinctive contribution to national objectives through community, location-based or specialised economic development, how should this contribution be identified and invested in?"

Community engagement can be fostered by building on social enterprise programs run through organisations such as the Canberra Innovation Network. Academics and their students, need specific training in how to identify community needs, and how to talk to the community. This can be built into professional curricular, as is done in the ANU School of Computing's Techlauncher Program.

Regulation and governance

36 "What regulatory and governance reforms would enable the higher education sector to better meet contemporary demands?

37 How could a more coherent and dynamic national governance system for higher education be achieved?"

One of the strengths of the Australian education system is the mix of federal state and non-government. The temptation to simplify, and centralise, should be resisted.

Academic workforce

38 "How can the Accord support higher education providers to adopt sector-leading employment practices?"

The Accord can recommend legislation making wage theft a crime, with jail terms for the Vice Chancellors where institutions deliberately, and systematically, steal money from their staff.

The problem of insecure employment can be addressed by ensuring that doctoral students are trained for jobs which exist in government, or industry, and not given the false impression they have a well paid secure future in academia. With the ability to get a job elsewhere, academic staff will be much harder for universities systematically to exploit.

Quality experience for students

39 "What reforms are needed to ensure that all students have a quality student experience?

40 What changes are needed to ensure all students are physically and culturally safe while studying?"

Having students first undertake vocational education, and paid employment, will ensure more maturity on entry to university. Compulsory courses on study skills can incorporate familiarly with what students can expect, and how to complain when they don't get it. Compulsory group work for new students can incorporate cultural sensitivity training.

Compulsory training for teachers in how to teach can incorporate cultural sensitivity training.

Research quality

41 "How should research quality be prioritised and supported most effectively over the next decade?"

The Australian Government can fund the development of an international university ranking scheme which prioritises education quality over research quantity. This will correct the current imbalance where universities strive to maximise the production of research papers, at the expense of quality, to achieve a high ranking, and thus attract students. 

Academic integrity

42 "What settings are needed to ensure academic integrity, and how can new technologies and innovative assessment practices be leveraged to improve academic integrity?"

Academics can be trained in how to design courses which incorporate authentic work integrated assessment, rather than essays and exams. This will be more effective than continuing the arms race between AI to create essays, and AI to detect them.

International Education

43 "How should the current recovery in international education be managed to increase the resilience and sustainability of Australia’s higher education system, including through diversification of student enrolments from source countries?

44 How can the benefits of international education be shared broadly across the system, including in regional areas, and what level of reporting should there be?"

The resilience of Australian Higher education can be increased by providing a quality online option. A condition of funding of Australian universities should be cooperation, not competition, with international marketing. Existing cultural contacts with Vietnam, Indonesia, and the region, should be exploited.

The Australian Government should scrap the New Colombo Plan, and instead fund a virtual Colombo program, which subsidises students from developing nations to study online alongside Australian students.  

Investment and affordability

45 "How should the contribution of different institutions and providers to key national objectives specific to their location, specialist expertise or community focus be appropriately financed?

Q46 How can infrastructure development for higher education be financed, especially in regional and outer urban locations?"

Government funding of regional campuses should be conditional on those campuses being shared, between institutions, and with the local community.

Commonwealth funding for higher education research and teaching and learning

47 "What structure of Commonwealth funding is needed for the higher education sector for the system to be sustainable over the next two decades?"

Funding for teaching and learning should continue to be limited to accredited institutions, public and private. Rather than open degree awarding to a larger range of institutions, students should be encouraged to obtain more vocationally relevant sub-degree qualifications. The current degree awarding institutions can then be incentivised to grant credit to a degree for these.

Student contributions and the Higher Education Loan Program

48 "What principles should underpin the setting of student contributions and Higher Education Loan Program arrangements?

Government should fully fund the equivalent of one Certificate IV for each Australian citizen, with subsidies reducing as the student completes each higher level of study.

Job-ready Graduates (JRG) package

49 "Which aspects of the JRG package should be altered, and which should be retained?"

Undergraduate Certificates should be retained as part of nested degree programs. However, the option of the student undertaking this in the vocational sector should be encouraged.

Australia host a blended UN Climate Change Conference?

Greetings from the "Post COP27 – What happened, and where to from here?" seminar at the Australian National University in Canberra. There was criticism of access to COP27 for representatives of indigenous groups and those who could not afford to sent a large delegation across the world. Australia has bid to host a future COP in conjunction with Pacific Nations. So I suggested to the panel this should be a blended event, allowing participation online, with consensus building software used. The panel were mildiny enthusiastic, while pointing out that final negotiations still happen face to face. But I suggest that this need not be the case, and it is this process which has got the world into the mess it is in with global warming. The ANU Techlauncher studets could build a system, using free open source software, to do this. 

Inquiry into Australia’s tourism and international education sectors

Presenting on M-learing for the Indo-Pacific,
Colombo, 2018. 

The Australian Parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade is holding an Inquiry into Australia’s tourism and international education sectors. The committee is accepting submissions. For  international education the terms of reference are:

1. "challenges associated with the loss of international student numbers as a result of the significant disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and effective measures to attract and retain students to Australia;
2. online innovations in education delivery and potential opportunities to strengthen the sector's resilience;
3. initiatives to ensure positive international student experience and support pathways to build their skills and contribute to Australia's prosperity; and
4. opportunities for international education to support strategic and foreign policy objectives"

Some initial thoughts:

COVID-19: A White Swan Event

The COVID-19 pandemic was a shock for traditional campus based universities, especially those with a research focus. These universities had to quickly convert to online delivery to students, who were unable to get to campus. This was done by turning lectures into video conferences, and exams into online quizzes. However, the limitations of this approach was already well known in the distance education community. Also it challenged how teaching staff see their role, and what students want from a university. 

The institutions which had the lest difficulty were education-focused online, distance, and open universities. These institutions have been in the business of delivering education to remote students, in some cases for half a century, or more. Some more conventional campus based universities, particularly in Singapore, had practiced online delivery in an emergency, after their experience with SARS-CoV-1 in 2002 to 2004 (Chandran, 2010).

After being alerted to the need for an online alternative in an emergency, I investigated how this might be done for international students of an Australian research intensive university (Worthington, 2017). In 2016 and 2017 I gave a series of talks warning Australian universities to be ready with an online option in case international students were unable to get to campus. In the case of Australia, it seemed at that time that international tensions over the South China Sea were more likely to interrupt student access, rather than a pandemic.

In 2019 I redesigned the learning module I was delivering to allow for blended delivery, plus the option of full online delivery in an emergency (Worthington, 2019). This contingency was activated in 2020 for to COVID-19. No changes were required to content, or assessment. The face to face components were simply replaced with Zoom webinars (Cochrane, Et al., 2021). 

1. Measures to attract and retain students

Australia can continue to use essentially the same marketing techniques for attracting international students. These emphasize Australia as a safe place, with quality respected institutions, and job opportunities. Universities can continue to use their campuses as part of the marketing. However, in reality most students spent most of their time not in a classroom, even before COVID-19. Conventional lectures are a very poor way to learn, and exams a poor way to assess. Universities were replacing these with experiential learning, and project based assessment, and COVID-19 has accelerated this trend. Unfortunately, these are difficult to market learning formats, with parents wanting to see students in class, and potential employers seeing scope for cheating in online assessment.

The key to marketing the new educational techniques is through the person to person learning, for vocationally relevant outcomes. One example is Work Integrated Learning (WIL), where students learn, and earn course credit, while in a workplace. WIL is part of the requirements for membership of professions, including engineering, and computing, as it is way of providing students with so-called "soft" skills. This is attractive for students, especially where the WIL is through paid work. However, arranging sufficient work places is an expensive process for universities, which are currently undertaking this is an ad-hoc way, and competing for job placements.

Coordination of WILL opportunities with universities, industry bodies and government could improve the attractiveness of Australia as an educational destination, while also meeting staff shortages.

2. Online education for resilience

For those who were already using online learning, and those who had planned to use it in an emergency, the pandemic proved to be mostly business as usual. In particular, asynchronous learning to provide the scaffolding for a course, with embedded synchronous activities added (Worthington, 2013). This proved resilient to problems with equipment, bandwidth, and students and staff unavailable at set times. With this approach students are provided with all the materials they need, and all assessment tasks, at the beginning of a course. The student works through the materials on their own, or with others, occasionally checking in with a tutor. 

The approach to course design I suggested in 2016, and implemented in 2019, had a traditional distance education format, with face to face components for those who could get to campus, or online for those who could not. This approach evolved from that used by the Australian Computer Society for professional development, modified for delivery at university with face to face components. This approach is supported by education theory (Narayan, Et al., 2012).

3a. Providing a positive student experience

Unfortunately most online education delivery during the pandemic was not designed for online distance delivery, and undertaken by staff not trained in digital education. The students were not inducted into the distance format, and had to learn about it, at the same time as their instructors, as courses evolved. Despite these impediments, overall learning was achieved. However, with training, staff can deliver a much better experience. Decades of research shows that online and distance institutions provide a learning experience at least equal to face to face (Worthington, 2012). 

For students who are unable to get to campus due to cost, disability, employment or family commitments the distance option is their only best option. In the past Australian universities routinely discriminated against students by refusing to provide an online option which was feasible, affordable, but too much trouble. It would be unfortunate if universities were permitted to withdraw the online option, and return to discriminating against students. One promising development to provide 

3b. Pathways to build skills and contribute to Australia

The previous Australian government introduced undergraduate certificates, as a form of short university qualification. Universities responded by taking the first semester of their degrees and packaging these as the certificate. This was a worthwhile initiative, but does not provide the flexible "micro-credentials" talked about. For these to be designed and become useful universities will need to adopt the techniques for standardizing, and packaging short qualifications used in the vocational education and training (VET) sector (Worthington, 2018).

4. Supporting strategic and foreign policy

A key component of the cold war Colombo Plan was to provide subsidized education to people from developing nations of the Indo-Pacific region. This was done to help with development, and engender friendly relations with Australia. Now that Australia, and other western countries have switched to using education as a for-profit premium product, China has stepped in to offer low cost education, as an element of foreign policy. Australia can't compete directly with the scale of provision of low cost education by China, but could offer premium blended low cost education targeted at the region (Worthington, 2014). Delivery of education via low cost mobile devices has potential (Sinfield, Et al., 2020).

References

Chandran, R. (2010, May). National University of Singapore's Campus-Wide ELearning Week. In Global Learn (pp. 2062-3302). Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). URL https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/blog.nus.edu.sg/dist/0/119/files/2011/03/national-university-of-singapores-campus-wide-elearning-week.pdf

Cochrane, T., Narayan, V., Aiello, S., Birt, J., Cowie, N., Cowling, M., ... & Worthington, T. (2021, November). Back to the Future Post Pandemic Socially Constructed Blended Synchronous Learning-Vignettes from the Mobile Learning SIG. In ASCILITE 2021. ASCILITE.

Narayan, V., Cochrane, T., Aiello, S., Birt, J., Cowie, N., Cowling, M., ... & Worthington, T. (2021, November). Mobile learning and socially constructed blended learning through the lens of Activity Theory. In ASCILITE (Vol. 2021, p. 38th).

Sinfield, D., Narayan, V., Cochrane, T., Cowie, N., Hinze, M., Birt, J., ... & Worthington, T. (2020, December). A mobile ecology of resources for Covid-19 learning. In ASCILITE 2020: ASCILITE’s first virtual conference. ASCILITE.

Worthington, T. (2012, July). A Green computing professional education course online: Designing and delivering a course in ICT sustainability using Internet and eBooks. In 2012 7th International Conference on Computer Science & Education (ICCSE) (pp. 263-266). IEEE.

Worthington, T. (2013, April). Synchronizing asynchronous learning-Combining synchronous and asynchronous techniques. In 2013 8th International Conference on Computer Science & Education (pp. 618-621). IEEE.

Worthington, T. (2014, August). Chinese and Australian students learning to work together online proposal to expand the New Colombo Plan to the online environment. In Computer Science & Education (ICCSE), 2014 9th International Conference on (pp. 164-168). IEEE. URL https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCSE.2014.6926448

Worthington, T. (2017). Digital Teaching In Higher Education: Designing E-learning for International Students of Technology, Innovation and the Environment. ANU Open Research Repository. https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/148737

Worthington, T. (2018, December). Blended learning for the indo-pacific. In 2018 IEEE International Conference on Teaching, Assessment, and Learning for Engineering (TALE) (pp. 861-865). IEEE.

Worthington, T. (2019, December). Blend and flip for teaching communication skills to final year international computer science students. In 2019 IEEE International Conference on Engineering, Technology and Education (TALE) (pp. 1-5). IEEE.

Hackerthon Format Has Potential for Education

This weekend teams across Australian and New Zealand have been participating in Govhack 2022, looking at how free open access data provided by government, might be used. Here are some of the videos submitted today. There will be judging and award of prizes from the sponsors. However, I suggest this form of rapid fire development process could be used as part of an educational program. ANU Techlauncher, and similar group programs, take six months or a year, whereas a hackerthon can take 72 hours. This provides a useful simulation of the type of high pressure graduates are likely to find themselves in. 

Race to the Top for Talent Says new Australian Computer Society CEO

Greetings from the National Press Club in Canberra, where the Australian Computer society are launching the "ACS Australia’s Digital Pulse 2022" report. Chris Vein, the new ACS CEO, fresh from the USA, described how Australia is in a "race to the top" for global computer talent. This year's Pulse report, prepared by Deloitte Access Economics, backs this up, with details of the growth areas for demand for personnel, particularly as cyber security, digital analytics, and AI. The Hon Ed Husic MP, Minister for Science, then talked about the ACT's role in support of government, and proposals of the new government to open up contracts to local tenderers. The Minister also mentioned the issue of diversity, arguing technology industries have suffered from a lack leading to poor design. The Pulse report (Page 16) bears this out, with a 31% female computer workforce, compared to 46% for professions generally. 

I asked the Minister about cyber training in the region, particularly Indonesia, where a recent ANU National Security College report expressed concern. The Minister mentioned his recent trip to Indonesia, and emphasized vocation education, and micro-credentials as areas with potenital.

Andrew Barr, Chief Minister of the ACT Government, and Attorney-General Shane Rattenbury, are also present. 

ps: The release of the Pulse report is fortuitous, as tomorrow I am helping a class of several hundred ANU computer students think about their future career.

The Future of Assessment Feedback

 When universities are preparing a Learning and Teaching Strategy, it is important to make what is proposed, staff and prospective students know the details. But what should be in such a strategy? What has worked well during the COVID-19 pandemic, and should be kept?

For the last few years I have been helping teach ANU Techlauncher, which has no exams, progressive assessment, some peer feedback, authentic and oral  assessment, Work Integrated Learning (WIL): the lot. This is challenging for staff and students, but that is the point: it is a capstone exercise to ensure graduates are ready for the real world.

One aspect which has worked well is a reflective portfolio disguised as a job application, and could be applied generally as a program capstone across a university. The idea is that a student has to think about what career they want, and what they have learned which help with that, in a very useful way. This is more relevant that a student having to prepare a portfolio which might be useful some time in the future. 

Previously I had used small quizzes and assessed forum contributions to keep online students working. Also I used a “best of” assessment scheme for small assessment tasks, so students could have a couple of bad weeks, without penalty. This helps cut down on requests for special consideration, and extra marks, as students know one missing or bad result will not penalize them. 

However, staff designing, and doing, assessment need to be trained in how to. The average academic knows about exams and assignments. There is also resistance from academics to spreading assessment throughout the courses to keep students working. There is the reasonable fear this will increase staff and student workload, but it can reduce the workload, if well designed. Academics are not familiar with vocational style assessment which looks for competency, not a 100 point scale. When they realise they do not have to treat a small test like a major exam, they can relax a bit.

More low stakes assessment can be used. This could be applied for small tasks, while large assignments are used to identify high achievers, to give the benefits of the ungraded approach, but with grades. 

Obviously authentic assessment should be used: it is natural and easy to apply in vocational courses. However, the research staff may not be qualified in real-world skills, or how to teach them. Peer and self assessment are fine for low stakes tasks, but is problematic for high stakes ones.

Obviously assessment should be scaffolded. The whole course should be there to support the assessment. If something is not assessed it should not be in the course. High stakes exams should be abolished. Small tests are okay.

A little oral assessment is okay, as long as it is linked to the learning objectives. The approach used by innovation centers (such as Canberra's CBRIN) to teach giving compelling presentations could be adopted by universities, or this teaching handed off to associated centers. Orals can be high stress: ask me about the pile driver during my MEd presentation. ;-)

Hackerthons could be incorporated. These could be within a course, a program, university wide, or open. The hackerthon packages a group project into a few days, rather than weeks.

Assessment templates, tools, and marking tools would be of some use. However, this is not a substitute for training staff in assessment. Personalised automated feedback would be of some use. The Techlauncher students have access to the university's careers automated tools, and we will try to have them use these more next semester. Templates for e-portfolios would be useful. However, this also requires staff training. Also I suggest a GitLab type repository, and advanced group working tools, as used by Techlauncher. 

An ungraded university first year would be disastrous, unless academics who were also trained, qualified educators were to run it. Otherwise this would cause great stress for students, particularly those from diverse backgrounds. I suggest instead an approach using progressive assessment, where only the best grades count. That is something the students, and especially the staff, will be better able to cope with.

The overriding constraint on changing a university's assessment is the lack of academics trained and qualified in education. The major challenge is how to get competent staff without compromising a university's’s research focus.

Do Students from Low Socioeconomic Status Backgrounds Cost More to Teach?

Devlin and others (2022), estimate that it costs about six times as much for an Australian university to support a low socioeconomic status (SES) student as a high one. As someone who was a low SES student, I found this a startling claim, as I don't recall extra resources being lavished on me. In fact it was only when I became an online student, with minimal resources provided, but ones expertly crafted by qualified educators, that I became a successful student.

The authors report the additional costs for SES students come from: "increasing aspiration and capital prior to university; academic, personal and financial support provided while studying; establishing, maintaining and appropriately staffing multiple university campuses, particularly in highly disadvantaged areas; and supporting highly complex student needs". Of these only three sound plausible: academic & personal support while studying and supporting highly complex student needs. 

Reducing the costs of support with good course design

One of the lessons of accessible design could be applied more broadly to support low and disadvantaged students, while reducing cost. The traditional approach was to wait for students with a disability to come forward and request assistance, the craft this for them. The modern approach is to assume there will be such students and build in access for them. This reduces the overall cost, and provides a better education for all students. Another is to provide well designed study materials and assessment items, so students know what they need to do, and nothing they don;t need to do. Other supposed costs of SES students sound like general, optional, university costs to me: 

Increasing aspiration and capital prior to university: These are programs for school students to interest them in university and empower parents. Another name for such activities is "marketing". Universities run such programs with little evidence these are of value to the students, parents, or even the university. If the cost of such programs is excessive, universities could run them jointly, if the purpose really is to benifit the students, rather than the individual university, or move them online, or simply cancel them.

Financial support provided while studying: Universities charge student fees. Any financial support provided is, in effect, a discount on the fees. Universities provide such support so as to attract, and retain high performing students, thus boosting rankings, and to meet government mandated quotas for specific disadvantaged groups. If the financial support is not meeting these goals, then the university can discontinue it and try another way to boost their rankings. In particular universities could offer flexible programs, which allow students to work and study at the same time, and provide course credit for work experience.

Campuses in highly disadvantaged areas: Curiously, the authors do not seem to think it is providing a subsidy when universities place their main campus in a high SES area, as most of Australia's older universities are, only a subsidy when a satellite campus is placed in a disadvantaged area. However, campuses at the current scale are not needed for quality education. COVID-19 showed that mass online learning is feasible, for providing quality university education is possible, with less campus use. This was, of course, already known, with distance education provided for decades. If universities wish to reduce costs, they could shut down campuses which are using high value real-estate, and open smaller ones in low cost areas. Also, rather than build their own satellite campuses, universities could form consortia, and partnerships with the VET sector, for regional shared facilities. Smaller facilities could be co-located with upper secondary schools, and public libraries.

Reference

Devlin, M., Zhang, L. C., Edwards, D., Withers, G., McMillan, J., Vernon, L., & Trinidad, S. (2022). The costs of and economies of scale in supporting students from low socioeconomic status backgrounds in Australian higher education. Higher Education Research & Development, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2022.2057450

Australian Universities Can Reform and Have More International Students

It is something of a boom time for books and articles on reform of the higher education system. In addition to Heller's Distributed University, we now have "Australia’s Universities: Can They Reform?" by Salvatore Babones, University of Sydney. A very readable 205 pages, Babones takes a timely look at where our universities came from, and where they might go. The author starts by making a plea for data collected by parties without a vested interest on which to make policy (p. 3). That seems a naive wish: why would anyone who doesn't have a vested interest go to the trouble of collecting data about universities? Babones claims to be offering "disinterested policy advice" (p. 4), but holds a position at a Australia's oldest university. His somewhat jaundiced views on 'autonomy without responsibility" perhaps come from association with a university has a lot of history.

Babones argues Australian universities do not have a financial or free speech crisis, but a moral one: taking government money but not acting in the public interest. Perhaps the problem is that the interests of government are not necessarily the same as those of the public. A long way from University of Sydney, I hold an honorary position at the Australian National University (ANU). A much newer institution, and one with a mission written into federal legislation, with significant funding from the same government. However, I see no sign of this moral problem: the ANU accepts money and then interprets how it sees its public responsibilities. That perception mostly aligns with government objectives, but where it does not, the university asserts it academic independence, and that of its academics. 

More usefully than the moral landscape, Babones gives a brief overview of higher education's structure and history in Australia. As the author notes, Australian universities follow a European model. The universities decide their own curricula, largely free from government interference. As a member of professional body which accredits degrees (the Australian Computer Society), I have more say in what computer students learn at university than any government official does.

One point Babones doesn't emphasize is that universities are not the only higher education bodies in Australia. He points to "University Colleges", but only mentions in passing the vocational education sector, with state government TAFEs, and private registered training organisations (RTOs). As Babones notes, public discussion tends to focus on the public universities, but is guilty of the same mistake of ignoring the important role of TAFEs and RTOs (p. 15), as it happens I been a student at the then ACT TAFE, as well as more recently in the guise of the Canberra Institute of Technology.

One Australian university is very different to all the others. As Babones points out Torrens University Australia is privately internationally owned. Ruling it of for analysis on that basis (p. 17), I suggest, is exactly the wrong thing to do, as it has many interesting characteristics. Torrens provides blended learning at campuses worldwide. In this respect it was ahead of many Australian universities. Also Torrens has an emphasis on vocationally orientated hands-on education, for example, having a hotel for its hotel management students to train at in the Blue Mountains.

Another misstep is that Babones focuses on the Group of Eight (Go8) research intensive universities. As the author writes this group (of which my own ANU is a member), has been effective at influencing government strategic thinking. The education intensive regional universities are less influential, but I suggest no less important to the nation, and so deserve further consideration (I have been a student at USQ). 

In the chapter "Are Australian Universities Underfunded" Babones concludes they are not, with federal funding being "medium high" by world standards, with international students being a "low margin" addition to this, in " a futile search for everlasting growth"  (p. 54). At this point the author's own bias comes out in the statement "It's not clear that universities should grow at all" (p.55). They seem to want to return to an era when universities were sleepy backwaters for a few. 

 Babones argues that the ANU, in particular, saved itself from more severe losses during COVID-19, by setting a 20,000 limit on international student numbers. I suggest that instead, ANU, and other Australian universities were saved by educational technologists who had put in place online education, in part for this contingency. ANU had previously suffered a number of campus closures due to natural disasters, during which administration, research and education had continued online. In 2016 I warned Canberra's universities that international students could be prevented from getting to campus, and we should be ready to teach them online. While no all academics welcomed, or heeded, this advice, there was a cadre of educational technologists ready to help the recalcitrant, when the choice the alternative they faced was poverty and disease.

Babones argues Australia has the largest ratio of international to domestic students, and the second largest number absolutely. This is put as a negative, with these being low margin, high volatility market. However, in what other industry would it be argued that Australian in an international market, despite its volatility and low margins, be a bad thing? The author's suggested alternative of fostering on the domestic market has not been a success for many Australian industries, simply because there are not many Australian customers.

In the next chapter Babones asks "How many students are too many?". One odd metric used is that native English speakers should be in the majority in the classroom. If English is the language of instruction, provided the proficiency of the instructor, and the students, is to the required standard, whatever languages they may be able to speak is not relevant. Having students from many countries is of benifit to Australian studnts, as this is the world they will have to live, and work, in. Graduates will likely work in teams of people from, and in, many nations. 

Babones is correct in asserting that Australian universities pursued international students when they could no longer grow the domestic market. However, the author seems to think the universities doing this in a highly professional way, using materials in the student's language, is in some way a negative. Torrens is singled out for having 61% international students, as if this was setting a bad example for the public universities, "... behaving as for-profit businesses ...". But what is wrong with a university earning revenue for the benifit of their owner (in the case of a public university, the public). It appears that the greatest sin our universities have committed in Babones' eyes is to have run a successful business. By this criterion, major US and UK universities are similarly at fault. On several visits to Cambridge University UK, I was able to see how this very successful money making machine operates. This university educates students and conducts research to a very high standard, but it also turns the research into very profitable goods and services.

Applying Bowen's Law Babones argues that Australian public sensitivities should do the best they can to educate Australian students, with the money given by government. This is a very narrow view of how not-for-profit organisations can operate. If it is the case that Australian universities should not be earning income from international students, then the solution is obvious: change their charter to allow for what they have been doing so well. 

Babones uses a comparison of a "poorly funded university ... taught by obscure scholars with few publications" versus a richly funded one "... taught by Nobel laureates". The implication is that the students at the first will receive a poorer one than the latter. This is not the case. Researchers do not necessarily make good teachers. This can be seen in Australia, where the regional education intensive universities consistently outperform the research intensive ones, simply because well trained educators are better teachers. 

The central part of Babones thesis is made clear in the chapter "How many international students are too many?". The author notes that Australia has a much higher ratio of international students than other countries, even with NZ students classified as domestic. He suggests "too many" financially speaking is when the per student revenue is less than domestic. However, this assumes a very limited view of what a not-for-profit institution can do. There is no reason I can see why there need to be any link between fees, or revenue, from domestic and international students. 

Babones also notes that some Australian universities are large by international standards, and international student numbers were reduced 10% they would be more in line (p. 82). But the author leaves much larger non-Australian universities out of the comparison, such as Open University UK, with 175,000 students is twice as large as Australia's largest. The chapter concludes with the assertion that Australian universities sought international students to fund research. This is presented as if it was a negative, rather than, as I see it, as a positive. The author seems to want Australian universities to limit their research budgets to whatever the Australian Government chooses to provide. Leading international universities do not do that: they seek other sources of revenue. It just happens that Australian universities have proved adept at getting revenue from international students, rather than wealthy benefactors, and intellectual property. 

In the chapter "Is rankings mania warping university priorities" Babones takes a needed look at the league tables produced of universities. As the author points out, while these ranking schemes use different methodologies, they produce similar results, and Australia rates well. I suggest this should not be a surprise, as the rankings are based mainly on research output and research reputation, where Australia does well. What Babones doesn't point out is that these rankings have little, if anything to do with the quality of the education provided. If anything, a high research ranking may lower the quality of education, as researchers don't necessarily make good educators. Despite this, students, and their parents, use the research based ranking in deciding on a university. As a result some Australian universities have used misleading marketing, claiming their institution is in the top few percent in the world. There are alternative ranking schemes, such as the "Webometrics Ranking of World Universities". 

Continuing a list of hot topics, Babones next asks "Have Australia's universities been corrupted by China?". This is a serious charge, suggesting the leaders of our universities acted dishonestly for personal gain. The author concludes that Conffucius Institutes were not been financially rewarding for the universities which hosted them. Similarly Babones expresses concern about China's Thousand Talents program, but can't produce solid evidence of corruption. 

One area Babones does't address, and I suggest will be increasingly difficult for Australian universities, are the human rights records of countries they wish to collaborate with, and draw international students from. The Group of Eight (Go8) Australian universities issued a statement "... condemning Russia’s attack on Ukraine’s people and sovereignty" (Go8, 4 March 2022). The ANU went further cutting ties with Russia (ANU, 4 March 2022). However, Australian universities have few international students from Russia, and few joint research projects. Will they be willing to follow this precedent in future, to call out human rights abuses in countries where they have much more to loose?

As an educator, rather than a researcher, I found Babones' question in the next chapter "Why are teaching and learning such low priorities?" easy to answer. Unfortunately the author missed the point completely. They suggest that low student engagement with a proliferation of increasingly online courses is a problem. Babones slates how some blame to the MOOC (Massive Open Online Course). However, this fad had ended before the COVID-19 pandemic began. What universities pivoted to online as an emergency measure were video versions of old fashioned face to face courses. This combined the lack of engagement of a boring old lecture with the problems of technology based access. Given the lack of trained teachers in Australian universities, and the lack of interest in online learning from the leaders of Australian universities, there was little else could be done. 

The question "Why are teaching and learning such low priorities?" was actually answered by Babones in a previous chapter on university ranking. As students, particularly international students, select a university based on ranking, and the rankings are not based on teaching quality, this is not a priority. Universities select staff based primarily on research ability, which is, at best, unrelated to teaching.

There are ways to address the quality of education at universities. This requires staff to be trained to teach, and for specialists in education to help design learning and assessment. However, such initiatives are deeply unpopular with academics trained and selected for a completely different set of skills. Even if implemented, the university would not be rewarded with a higher ranking, or more students. Babones suggests more government oversight, but that would have little effect, given the powerful perverse incentives against quality teaching. What government might do is fund and promote new metrics which value teaching. 

I agree with Babones that Australian universities can reform, but not on what those reforms should be. The COVID-19 crisis could have been less severe, not as Babones suggests by having fewer international students, but by being ready to teach them online. Contrary to the narrative presented by Australian VCs, the crisis in international students getting to campus was anticipated. Some Singapore universities put such measures in place after SARS outbreaks closed their campuses. This was not secret: they produced papers and videos on the topic. I was one of those who urged Australian university to be ready. Even now, many academics appear to be wishing for the return of the good old days when students came to lectures, rather than preparing to face new foreseeable challenges.

Babones asks some very worthwhile questions for Australian universities, but I suggest comes up with the wrong answers.

Digital Inequality: Academic Heal Thyself

The University of Canberra is hosting what is claimed to be the "First International Symposium on Digital Inequality and Social Change" (ISDISC). The theme is  Bridging digital inequality for a better and inclusive society. Researchers, practitioners and policy makers are invited.

But I suggest university academics need to set their own house in order before being able to claim the moral high ground on digital equality. The scramble to convert university courses and research participation online over the last two years has shown a lack of thought given to this area by academia. Courses were converted from hard to access lectures, to hard to access video lectures. Assessment was changed from hard to access paper based examinations, to hard to access web based examinations. The sad part of this is that there were open online distance universities with decades of experience in how to provide equitable access to a wider range of people, but elite institutions willfully ignored the freely offered advice, as it would place their campus based business model at risk.

Similarly with research: it is open to anyone who  can afford to get to expensive conferences, and passes the entrenched gatekeepers of the academic publishing system.

Fortunately the University of Canberra is leading by example, offering virtual attendance for those who can't get to Canberra, with a low fee.

The third in my Keep Calm and Carry Online Webinar Series, is planned for 10 am 3 November Canberra time (5pm 2 November Mountain Time in Canada), titled this "Keeping the best bits of online learning after COVID-19". This seminar is part of the Maskwacis Cultural College Microlearning Series in Canada, curated by Manisha Khetarpal. It is open to the public and free, but please register to attend.

Recently I was interviewed by John Ross, for Times Higher Education, on the future of the lecture. As I see it, teachers who can have their students feel a personal connection, online and face to face, will make for a quality educational experience. You can continue to call these "lectures", if you want, but they need to be more interactive, and available online, with the classroom an optional extra. I gave up conventional lectures in 2008, and moved my teaching online. By 2019 I had a format suitable for students working in groups in a classroom, and online, just in time for COVID-19.

This series is exploring how individual teachers and universities can better deliver learning through the use of technology on campus and online. These are aimed at the Australian university sector but may be of interest to other educators. 

Poster generated using Keep Calms.

"Keep Calm and Carry Online" a sign on the wall behind me, during webinars from my lounge room for the last eighteen months. So that as the working title for this series of talks. Contributions, corrections and offers of where to present would be welcome.

Keep Calm and Carry Online: Keeping the best bits of online learning after COVID-19

Tom Worthington, Honorary Senior Lecturer, ANU School of Computing

 (draft slides)

Abstract: Schools and universities made an emergency switch to online education last year due to COVID-19. This was challenging for students, teachers and the education system. What of this should be retained, particularly for more mature school, and university students, as the pandemic is brought under control? Come join Tom Worthington, Honorary Senior Lecturer in Computing, at the Australian National University. Find out how he spent seven years preparing for emergency e-learning, how it went when the pandemic stuck, and how we can continue to use the technology and techniques to make learning for students and teachers.

About the speaker: Tom Worthington is an  Honorary Senior Lecturer, at the ANU School of Computing, an independent computer consultant and educational technology designer. He previously wrote IT policy for the Australian Department of Defence. Tom is a Fellow, Past President and Honorary Life Member of the Australian Computer Society. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Tom has a Masters of Education in Open, Digital and Distance Education from Athabasca University and blogs as the highereducationwhisperer.com

Keeping the best bits of online learning after COVID-19

Preparing Online for a Global Pandemic

1. Accessible web page design,
2. Compatibility with desktop & mobile devices, 
3. Efficient encoding for fast download on slow networks,
4. Clear use of language, avoiding large and complex visual material. 

At the Department of Defence, until 1999, I worked on dealing with emergencies, using computers and the Internet. I kept up this interest and delivered a series of student projects, lectures and assignments at the Australian National University on using the Internet a mobile phones for emergencies, including a global pandemic. Also I assisted the Sahana Foundation with free open source software for humanitarian operations. The approach used in all these projects was accessible web page design compatible with desktop and mobile devices, efficient page encoding for fast download on slow networks, clear use of language, avoiding overly large and complex visual material. 

Preparing to Teach International Students Online in an Emergency

"International tensions could disrupt the flow of students to Australia very quickly. Competition from campuses in other countries and DE is likely to increase. I believe that I can assist Canberra's universities to produce quality on-line and blended programs ..." From MEd ePortfolio, Tom Worthington, November 2016

In 2008 I was contracted to design an online professional development course in Green ICT, for the Australian Computer Society (ACS). This used the Australian developed Moodle open sources Learning Management System.  ACS allowed me to place an open access licence on the course. The Australian National University (ANU) also used Moodle, so I was able to copy the course from ACS to ANU, and run it for on  campus and remote students. In 2013 I enrolled in an MEd in Distance Education at Athabasca university as an online international student, to learn how to design courses for online international students (Athabasca were using the Green ICT course I designed). In the conclusion of my capstone e-portfolio, and a series of talks, I suggested Canberra's universities should be ready to switch to online learning if a regional crisis kept students from campus. Also I suggested online learning to better compete in the education market. In late 2019 I delivered an international conference paper describing how to provide classroom group teaching to domestic and international students, in a way which could be moved online quickly in an emergency. This would be needed for a global emergency three months later.

Reference

Worthington, T. (2019, December). Blend and Flip for Teaching Communication Skills to Final Year International Computer Science Students. In 2019 IEEE International Conference on Engineering, Technology and Education (TALE) (pp. 1-5). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/TALE48000.2019.9225921

Responding to the Coronavirus Emergency with e-Learning

• Crash teaching new tutors to teach online in early 2020,
• Blended mode switched to full online contingency in 2020,
• Ready to switch to hybrid mode in 2022,
• Blogged all this, as well as conference papers.

In early 2020 I was preparing to help teach new tutors at the ANU College of Engineering and Computer Science, when called to an emergency meeting of staff.  We were told the university faced an "existential threat" from what came to be known as COVID-19 and asked if we could teach and assess students trapped overseas online. Several of us had experience with online learning, and being in the computer science school, we were well equipped, so said "yes". I was able to give the tutors a brief introduction to online techniques for teaching and assessment. As t became clear the situation was not going to get better any time soon, I made small changes to my already blended materials, to make them fully online. In mid 2021, in anticipation of a return to the classroom for some students, I made further small changes, to allow for hybrid mode, with some students online and some in the classroom, linked together. Unfortunately the return to campus was not possible in 2021, and in all I helped teach several hundred students per semester, over four semesters. The hybrid option remains available for 2022. This is documented in my blog, "Higher Education Whisperer", an article on the Athabasca University Website, and conference papers.

References

Cochrane, T., Birt, J., Cowie, N., Deneen, C., Goldacre, P., Narayan, V., ... & Worthington, T. (2020, November). A collaborative design model to support hybrid learning environments during COVID19. ASCILITE. https://2020conference.ascilite.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/ASCILITE-2020-Proceedings-Cochrane-T-et-al.pdf

Narayan, V., Cochrane, T., Cowie, N., Hinze, M., Birt, J., Deneen, C., ... & Worthington, T. (2020, November). A mobile ecology of resources for COVID-19 learning. ASCILITE.

Cochrane, T., Birt, J. R., Cowie, N., Deneen, C., Goldacre, P., Narayan, V., Ransom, L., Sinfield, D., &

Worthington, T. (2020). A collaborative design model to support hybrid learning environments during COVID-19.

In S. Gregory, S. Warburton, & M. Parkes (Eds.), ASCILITE 2020: Conference Proceedings. 37th International

Conference on Innovation, Practice and Research in the Use of Educational Technologies in Tertiary Education

(pp. 84-89). Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education.

https://2020conference.ascilite.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/ASCILITE-2020-Proceedings-Cochrane-T-et-

al.pdf

The X-factor for Student Satisfaction

Gary Martin, CEO, AIMWA

"With university leaders scrambling to regroup amid the operational and financial chaos caused by COVID-19, it has become clear that providing a transformative student experience is critical to attracting an increased shared of the domestic student market, and that for international students once borders re-open.

What remains unclear, however, is exactly how to crack the student experience X factor that delivers the kind of transformative experience students are looking for."

  From Creating an X-factor Experience, Gary Martin, Business News, 22 August 2021

Gary Martin, chief executive officer of the Australian Institute of Management WA, recently asked what gave a quality experience for Australian university students ("Creating an X-factor Experience", Business News, 22 August 2021). After scrambling to quickly deliver online courses, universities around the world are asking: what next? Do they return to pre-COVID campus based teaching, provide online courses alongside campus ones, blended learning which has some online and some face to face elements, or hybrid with classroom linked online.

While academics and university executives may think online delivery is still an open question, students now expect courses to be available online as a matter of routine. However, they also want the option of face to face classes, where they can work with others, under the guidance of experts. What will distinguish a course is the quality of interaction provided, with students and staff.

As an online student for seven years I found I could manage to study by following the materials provided, doing the readings and exercises. However, it was a very lonely, frustrating experience. What stood out were the occasions when I met and worked virtually with my fellow students. Events live with instructors were a highlight. The very rare occasions when I met my instructors were a bonus, as they were on the other side of the country, or the globe.

The Sage on the Stage

Prof. Steve Blackburn teaching Structured Programming
with interactive live-streamed lectures
from ANU Manning Clark Hall.

Professor Steve Blackburn and the team at ANU Engineering and Computer Science have shown the X-factor, in the video "Teaching computer science in a pandemic". I suggest, as the video demonstrates, student satisfaction can be improved though personal attention, enhanced with technology. Steve is a distinguished academic, who is also a good communicator, making him a Sage on the Stage. Steve can present, and discuss material in a way which engages the audience. However, he makes it look deceptively easy. Presenting a good lecture to a room full of students is difficult. Projecting your personality to students online is harder. Doing this to both a room and line is even harder. Not everyone will be able to reach Steve's level, but these are skills which can be learned, and practiced.

Guide on the side

Prof. Steve Blackburn & tutor Leopold Zhou

In the video, Steve mentions the role of tutors. Called Teaching Assistants (TAs) in North America, they are critical. While the professor takes center stage, the tutors work with smaller groups of students, assisting in lectures, in tutorials, workshops and laboratories, to investigate topics and practice skills. Here again, tutoring is a skill which takes training and practice, with a extra layer of complexity when carried out online.

Support Crew

Dr Kim Blackmore, Director,
ANU Centre for Learning and Teaching

Backing up the professor and tutors are many other staff. Producing courses, especially online courses, requires educational designers, video makers, and other specialists. Ed designers work with the subject matter experts to structure the learning and assessment, video makers and others polish the materials.

The Australian National University has a Centre for Learning and Teaching, headed by Dr Kim Blackmore, as well as staff in the colleges. These staff have been busy during the pandemic, with a crash program to move courses online. But they are always busy, so if you need help, give them plenty of notice.

Both classroom based and online learning also require technical support personnel to keep the audio visual systems, software and networks working. The last decade has seen new software to delivery learning developed. When working properly, and used as intended, these systems lighten the burden for students and teachers.

Tool Up

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that we need to be ready to deliver learning from and to, anywhere at any time. As a technology teacher I routinely carried everything I needed to teach in my briefcase. Here is a photo of my home office, upgraded with second hand equipment for lock-down teaching. I made a point of using low cost equipment to show that it is technique which makes good teaching not the hardware. I can make do with just a laptop, or even a smartphone, but the other equipment makes the job easier, and if all else fails, I can just use my voice and a plain old telephone service (known as "POTS" in telecommunications jargon).

Global Design

Holly Hapke, 
University of Kentucky.

3-in-1 Hybrid Learning:

1. Online asynchronous course, 

2. Add synchronous events, 

3. Add classroom events.

From Hapke, Lee-Post, and Dean (2020).

One way to avoid the idea that online learning is a poor quality cut-price experience is to bundle it with a campus offer, as hybrid learning. A good example is Hapke, Lee-Post, and Dean (2020), with their 3-in-1 Hybrid Learning. Rather than divide students administratively into distance and campus based, they receive the same online course, supplemented with synchronous events, either in the classroom or online, at the student's discretion.

The hybrid approach is more difficult for the instructor, than just online or face to face. However, it does provide them the opportunity to still be the "sage on the stage". The student has the sense of getting a full university experience, even if they enter a classroom. The institution can continue to market courses using images of ivy covered stone buildings, even if most students never set foot on campus (much like a gym membership which is never used). 

Over the last eighteen months, we have seen heroic efforts to rapidly convert campus based classroom courses for online delivery. Now there is discussion of a return, via hybrid, to the classroom. But it does not need to be this hard. Keep in mind that students value the personal interaction with each other, and with you, the teacher. Don't let a lot of content get in the way.

A typical course has more content, assessment, and activities, than needed. You can start by paring it down to what it is reasonable for a student to do in the time available to them. As an example, most courses have far more readings than a student could possibly read. I use a  estimate how long it will take a student to read reading speed of 80 words a minute for a student at IELTS 6.5 (McEwan, 2012, p. 80).

Design your courses as if they were to be delivered as old fashioned distance education, with no real time interaction (that is asynchronous mode). Provide the materials and activities for each week. Offer students ways to interact with you and each other, online. Make the deadlines generous, and don;t assume they can all do this at the same time. Then add synchronous activities which can be done online. Then add to that the option of those same activities in a classroom. Don't make the assessment synchronous, unless there is a compelling reason to do so. 

With this approach there is no need to make special provision for an emergency: one, more, or all students can study online at their own pace, if they can't come to class.

Students like this approach, but academics, and university administrators have difficulty with it. A "lecturer" who has built their sense of self around lecturing has to learn new skills and build a new identity. A university which has marketed the campus experience has to avoid the idea that are now just offering cheap, online video courses. 

References

Hapke, H., Lee-Post, A., & Dean, T. (2020). 3-IN-1 HYBRID LEARNING ENVIRONMENT. Marketing Education Review, 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1080/10528008.2020.1855989

McEwan, M. (2012). Evaluating and enhancing the feedback process: an international college case study. Practice and Evidence of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 7(1), 79-95. Retrieved from http://community.dur.ac.uk/pestlhe.learning/index.php/pestlhe/article/viewFile/131/244

 

Dogfood: Be an online student of teaching

- You don't know how frustratingly hard it is, until you try it.

- Enroll in an online course in how to teach. It has to have deadlines, and assessment, to make the experience real.

- If you find study frustrating, conflicting with family and work commitments, then you know what it is like for your students.

- Start with something easy, like the ANU Coffee Courses, work up to an international online graduate course. Take the good meal challenge.

As an online student of e-learning, at Australian and North American vocational colleges and universities, I learned much about how to design and deliver courses. However, one of the greatest insights was how hard being a student was, how frustrating being an online student was, and how lonely being an international online student was. Being a part time student with work and family commitments, just makes it harder still.

Academic staff, I suggest, need to be reminded what being a student is like, and many, like me, had never been an online student before they started teaching online. So I suggest some dogfooding:

Alpo Dog Food Commercial, 1980

'Back in the 1980s when actor Lorne Greene served as the pitchman for Alpo dog food, the TV commercials were careful to point out that he indeed fed Alpo to his dogs. Consequently, the idea that someone would use the products they were making became known as "eating your own dog food.'

From Harrison, W. (2006). Eating your own dog food. IEEE Software, 23(3), 5-7. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/MS.2006.72

I suggest starting with something simple, such as an ANU Coffee Course. These are intended to only take as much time as you spend on a coffee break, each day for a week. But even that commitment of time can be challenging. See if you can do ten and then reflect on the experience (although I don't know if ANU are still handing out certificates).

To have skin in the game, take the good meal challenge: hand a friend enough money for a good meal for two. Tell them that when you complete your study on time, you will share a meal with the funds. If you don't produce the certificate on time, ask them to give the money to charity.

ANU EFS, Information Sessions
from 14 September

For something harder, there are programs such as the ANU Educational Fellowship Scheme (EFS). But it is not all hard work, you also get to meet, if only virtually, people going through the same thing you are. This is also one of the key lessons I got from study: the importance of getting to know your fellow students.

See:

Responding to the Coronavirus Emergency with e-Learning, Tom Worthington, Beyond 50 Series, Athabasca University, April 17, 2020

Build the course around the assessment

- Set the learning objectives

- Select assessment to cover the learning objectives

- Provide support to obtain the knowledge and skills needed for the assessment

- Have many small regular assessment items and a few big ones

Students worry about assessment, so tell them what it is, and how each learning activity supports it. Delete activities, readings and materials which don't relate to assessment. Have small assessment tasks every week, to keep the students engaged (1% or 2% a week will do). Have a best of assessment scheme, so students can have multiple attempts. Provide results with feedback each week.

By clearly linking content and activities to the assessment, you can remove the frustration of students asking what will be assessed, as everything will be assessed. 

Team Teaching in ANU TechLauncher

Tempe Archer,

Careers Consultant

Four workshops per semester for ANU Computer Project students, preparing a capstone reflective portfolio. 

Designed for hybrid mode.

The team:

1. Course convener: Dr Charles Gretton, sets the context
2. Subject matter expert: Tempe Archer, delivers the workshop.
3. Instructor: Tom Worthington, manages the students
4. 200 Students: Peer review.
5. 13 Tutors: Assess their student’s portfolios.

An example of team teaching are the hybrid workshops, for the Australian National University Tech-Launcher program. Workshops are provided each semester for Computer Project students, to help them prepare a capstone reflective portfolio.

This module was designed with an online asynchronous core, to accompany the face to face workshops (Worthington, 2019). Provision for delivery fully online was included, in case an emergency kept students away from the campus. This contingency was activated in 2020, due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, by replacing the classroom with Zoom videoconferencing. For 2021, a hybrid option was added, allowing for students, both in the classroom, and online.

At each workshop, the Course Convener, Dr Charles Gretton, sets the context. Tempe Archer, from ANU Careers, is the "Sage on the stage", presenting the material she is expert on. I am the "guide on the side", putting the students into Zoom rooms for group work, relaying questions, and administering the accompanying assessment. There is also a team of tutors help the hundreds of students with their individual challenge of building a portfolios by the end of semester, and assess them on it.

Reference: 

Worthington, T. (2019, December). Blend and Flip for Teaching Communication Skills to Final Year International Computer Science Students. In 2019 IEEE International Conference on Engineering, Technology and Education (TALE) (pp. 1-5). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/TALE48000.2019.9225921

The Lexus and The Learner: Engineering Quality Education

2007 Toyota Camry and Lexus ES, built on the same car platform (Wikipedia, 2021)

 

Universities across the world are now struggling to come up with a post-COVID education strategy. On the one hand online learning has shown education can be provided efficiently anywhere, on the other there is a desire to provide a personal experience. Thomas L. Friedman explored a similar dilemma in "The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization" (1999). Lexus motor vehicles represented the desire for the products of globalization, and the olive tree local tradition. Friedman argued that globalization would win out, but I suggest it is possible to have both.

Engineering a car for global standards takes hundreds of engineers years and billions of dollars. So makers such as Toyota design a common "platform" for a range of models, from low cost to luxury ones. Luxury models are hand finished with some premium components, to give a luxury product.

The approach of an engineered platform, with personal touches added, can be applied to learning. A course can be created by a team of educational designers and subject matter experts, for delivery world wide, to meet formal government and professional standards. The basics of the course can be provided online, with personal touches added by teaching staff, live online and face to face. This way the student gets the benefit of quality design, plus the human element.

1. Higher Education After COVID-19, six webinars from August 2020, by Tom Worthington, for the Microlearning Series curated by Manisha Khetarpal at Maskwacis Cultural College, Canada
2. Engaging students in the online environment, five webinars from February 2021, by Tom Worthington, for the Microlearning Series curated by Manisha Khetarpal at Maskwacis Cultural College, Canada
3. Learning to Reflect Module Version 5.0: Hybrid Edition by Tom Worthington, for the  module for the ANU TechLauncher program, 2018 to 2021.